Data Collection Process – Step by Step

Following is a detailed, step-by-step description of the process of data collection.

3.6.1 Recruitment of Participants

Personal email messages were sent to the researcher’s close professional contacts around the world, outlining the research project and asking for help in recruiting any CEOs with whom they had a direct relationship. Those who responded favourably received further information and were asked to make the request and introduce the researcher to the prospective participant via email. The researcher then followed up with an email to the CEO to request available dates for a face-to-face interview. In some cases this required several email exchanges to secure a meeting.

Once an interview was booked in a given city, efforts were made to secure additional interviews in the same region to make the most of limited time and budget resources. In this event, the researcher utilized her wider contact network, including people with whom she had a more indirect relationship (i.e. fellow members of a professional association and people met briefly at conferences). Some requests were sent via email, others via online messaging functions of social networks. The messages sent stated that the researcher would be in the area interviewing other CEOs on specific dates and asked for help in recruiting additional participants. This method proved effective in several instances. For example, a trip to San Francisco, initially booked for two interviews, yielded a total of eight interviews in the end.

In the next round of recruitment, a new capability of the social networking platform LinkedIn, available by premium subscription, was utilized to search for potential

participants and make “cold” contacts. This premium feature made it possible to search LinkedIn’s entire global network using key words and filters and to view the full profiles of people; then to send an “Inmail” message directly to the individuals, who could choose to accept, reject or ignore the request for contact. An important aspect of the Inmail message is that it comes from LinkedIn, and embedded in the message is a link to view the LinkedIn profile of the person making the request. So it is possible for the recipient to quickly determine who the requestor is and whether they have

credibility, a considerably different experience than receiving an email request from a stranger. The service limits the number of messages that can be sent per month to prevent spamming.

LinkedIn database searches were performed for several European cities and

messages sent in small batches, concentrating one city at a time. As before, once one interview was booked, efforts were made to secure additional interviews for the same trip. This proved to be a surprisingly effective recruitment tool for some of the targeted countries, particularly in Denmark where nearly all the individuals contacted responded, most resulting in an interview. By contrast, requests sent to CEOs in Germany were largely ignored. There could be several explanations for this difference, including cultural or language differences, as well as attitudes towards and use of social media. It may be that although CEOs in some countries have a profile on LinkedIn, they may not maintain the account themselves, instead delegating it to an assistant or marketing personnel. In such cases the CEO may not see the Inmail message, and the gatekeeper effect described earlier remains an obstacle to access.

It should be noted that this new channel, and potentially others like it, may help other researchers overcome the challenge of access when researching elites, although a power differential likely comes into play in the decision of the recipient to respond, reject or ignore the request. If so, if the profile of the researcher reveals a large gap,

the recipient is unlikely to respond. Likewise, as Welch et al (2002) pointed out, the size of the gap between business culture and academic culture may make it more or less likely for business elites to respond to requests from academic researchers.

Although the recruitment process was successful in recruiting a diverse mix of

participants, the challenges and resources required should not be underestimated by researchers focused on corporate elites. In addition to the challenges detailed earlier in this chapter, the process of recruiting and scheduling participants was time-

consuming, as it required an individual approach rather than a mass approach, and each lead required several exchanges to complete a booking. In all, hundreds of individual emails, Inmails and telephone calls were required in order to achieve the sample of 28. Interviews had to be scheduled at the CEO’s convenience, making it sometimes difficult to schedule others around it. Last-minute changes happened several times, including two that could not be re-scheduled, and in one case resulting in costly changes to travel bookings. In total, the amount of time spent on recruitment was in excess of 100 hours spread over a period of eight weeks.

3.6.2 In-depth Interviews

As stated in Section 3.4, the primary method for data collection was in-depth

interviews. The format and style of the interview was shaped by the pilot study, utilizing techniques that seemed to yield the best results. Based on this, a list of previously effective questions and follow-up prompts was compiled and reviewed in preparing for the interviews. The interviews focused on collecting stories of incidents from the subjects’ own experiences of interacting cross-culturally in both their personal and business experiences, including past and present.

Although the overall format of the interviews was semi-structured, a short questionnaire (see Appendix C) was used to gather background information at the start of each

interview, which would gather data for balancing the sample as well as providing a number of variables for possible analysis. These questions also served as a warm-up and provided the interviewer with a number of possible prompts for soliciting narratives.

Most of the interviews were conducted at the business location of the participant, most often in a conference room, sometimes in the participant’s office. Most were conducted with both parties seated at a table, rather than across a desk. One interview was conducted at the participant’s home, one in an airport conference room, and two in restaurant settings.

Before starting the interview, the interviewer provided a brief (less than 2 minutes) overview of the research project, explained the objective and format of the interview, including confirming that the interview would conclude within the allotted 60 minutes. Participants were asked to sign a consent form (see Appendix B), and permission was requested to audio-record the interview. It was reiterated that the recording would be used for transcription and analysis only, and that they could be assured of

confidentiality and anonymity. The recording device was turned on and placed near the participant.

Whilst asking the background questionnaire questions, the interviewer read from and noted answers on paper. Upon completing that portion, the notes were set aside and the style of the discussion shifted to conversational.

The interviewer explained that the format from here forward would not be about asking and answering questions, but about the interviewee sharing stories from their own experiences of interacting, living, working, or managing cross-culturally, and that they could start wherever they chose. In some cases, that was all the prompting needed. In others, a prompt such as “it might help to start with the first time you found yourself outside your own culture” was usually enough to begin a narrative. Whenever another

gap occurred, similar prompts were used to explore personal experiences,

management experiences and business challenges. If the participant spoke only in generalities, prompts included “can you remember a specific incident when you…” If reference was made to having learned a lesson, prompts were used to explore how it was learned.

As the conversation began to wind down, or when the end of the hour approached, two concluding questions were asked which were designed to elicit the CEO’s perspectives on which competencies are most important at their level (regardless of whether or not they believed they had them):

 “If you were hiring someone to replace yourself or for a similar role and you knew this person would need to be successful working across cultures, what traits or skills would you look for, or how would you know they have the competencies needed?”

 “What advice or tips would you give a CEO who is moving into a global position?”